[Ferral]

What you have to bear in mind is that the mobile networks work on sheer profit and revenue generated. Skype and Voip won't bring in as much revenue as say roaming charges if calls are made over data or wireless.

To think of the phones that now have wireless built into them, if you are in a wireless area that is free to access you will go onto that rather than going through your normal data provider service and onto the web that way. This inevitably loses the network money. A few people doing it isn't going to actually lose the network much at all. However, when you consider how popular the N95 is, sheer volume of owners all using the wireless rather than network data the amounts lost soon start adding up.

Yes I do work for Vodafone but not trying to be pro anything (Just thought I'd get that in). Its the way the networks generate revenue here. If they can make more money one way than another they will always go for the highest revenue generation. What you also have to consider is that the mobile market is all but saturated at the minute, so the networks have to concentrate on how to get people to buy their product. Long contracts mean upgrades are becoming more spaced out instead of yearly, new customers are either people moving from network to network or teenagers that are old enough to get contracts now. Not forgetting these new customers are getting signed into 18 monh contracts also, these longer contracts are a knock on effect of handsets becoming more expensive due to the technology that is now being built into them.

So what gets pushed more than anything else now?

The way forward is to get the existing customers to start using more products. So at the minute it is data and web surfing. You will notice looking about at current tarriffs that nearly all of them on all networks have data bundles included. They want you to use the data side of things so revenue can be generated that way with the slow down of handsets and new conracts.